Scarcity and misery at the time of 'abundance beyond imagination' : climate change, famines and empire-building in Ottoman Anatolia (c. 1800-1850)

Abstract

This study examines the effects of climate change on the early-nineteenth century socio-political transformation of the Ottoman Empire by analyzing the institutionalization of an imperial political-ecology, and the transformation of socio-ecologies of the imperial subjects as a reaction to both the climate change and the development of the imperial political ecology. It is argued that the first official weather forecasts, the first Ottoman natural history museum (1836-1848) and model farms of the 1840s were institutional outputs of a significant change in the perception of nature of Ottoman administrators. On the other hand, that perception, which tended to understand nature more and more as a commodity and a scientific object was reacted and challenged by Ottoman subjects in a variety of ways ranging from resistance, to adaptation, and invention of new tactics to cope with its effects. Abstaining from felling trees for the Tersane-i Amire, incendiarism, altering established labor-relations and migration against the will of the state were among the most common practices. It is argued that the resulting dialectic between an ideology based on expert knowledge and identity, and one based on local knowledge became a decisive factor in the empire-building practices and the direction of reforms during the second half of the century. The same dialectic made visible the reasons of the 'failure' of Ottoman state in natural disaster relief after the 1830s, especially during the famine of 1845-50. Dependence of Ottoman administration on centrally appointed expert-bureaucrats and their ideology in comparison to pre-1840 famines, limited the ability of the state to take immediate action and its capacity to negotiate with local elites, merchants, producers and consumers. Famine-time charity and philanthropy have become practices through which a new imperial identity was negotiated between the central authorities, local elites and common subjects of the empire.